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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29728992">Impossible Things</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChelseaDear/pseuds/ChelseaDear'>ChelseaDear</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A+ Destiny Forecasting for our boys here, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst to Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, chapter specific warnings added in start notes, enemies to loves, well sort of</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:55:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,098</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29728992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChelseaDear/pseuds/ChelseaDear</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knew how it worked. One day, when you were old enough, when you'd <i>experienced enough,</i> the first words your soulmate would speak to you appeared somewhere on your body. A soulmark, they called it.</p><p>Boba assumed he didn't have a soulmark. A quirk of fate, he'd reasoned. The result of being his father's clone. It didn't bother him, not really. He'd made a life for himself as Boba Fett, not as Jango Fett's son.</p><p>Din Djarin has lived too many places to call anywhere home. He had his people, sure. He was their hunter, their <i>beroya.</i> He provided for them, loved them, even. He didn't have a soulmark, but he was okay with that. No soulmark meant no soulmate, and no soulmate meant no conflicting pulls of two very different duties.</p><p>Sometimes, though, destiny simply shows up late.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Din Djarin/Boba Fett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>118</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>554</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Clearing a Path, part 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The city was burning.</p><p>The city was burning and he still had a target to find.</p><p>A lot of cities were burning across the stars. Despite the Clone Wars having officially been over for almost a decade, the fighting had not stopped.</p><p>Wars were like that, Boba had realized. In the records, they had an end date, a neat little mark saying <i>this is where the fighting ended.</i> In practice, though, they dragged on, warring factions unable to set aside their differences or their ideals aside because some rich bastards who never had a personal stake in the fight besides power and their own pride said they were supposed to.</p><p>And so, dead wars rages across villages, towns, cities, entire planets even; they collected their dues from blood and fear and loss, not bureaucrats. </p><p>This one raged across the stars themselves.</p><p>When he was younger – much younger – he'd resented the clones. They were too much like droids, lacking just enough of his father to feel <b>wrong</b> every time he had to look at them, worse still when he had to listen to them. </p><p>He missed his father.</p><p>Order 66, even though he was far away when everything happened, felt like a good revenge. Thousands upon thousands of people that only existed because of his father <i>slaughtered</i> those responsible for Jango's death.</p><p>There were some Jedi left, sure; there were always stragglers who thought of themselves as survivors. There weren't enough of them, though, not enough by far to reestablish themselves.</p><p>Peacekeepers indeed. All they'd done at the end was commit slaughter.</p><p>Boba was a bounty hunter now, had been, really, for as long as he'd realized he could make his own choices. He was deadly, fast, <i>recognized.</i>. Just like his father, he believed.</p><p>Once someone was Boba's target, there was no safe place in the universe. He was an endurance hunter: never stopping, never resting, never faltering. He could – and more importantly <i>would</i> – outlast his prizes. </p><p>He worked in groups. He worked alone. He <i>worked</i>, and that was the point, wasn't it? He worked and he hunted and he kept order in places where chaos seemed to be the ruling force.</p><p>–</p><p>He woke up in a cold sweat.</p><p>He hadn't screamed, not this time, thankfully. Din Djarin hadn't been a child for a long, long time; he was well past the age where awaking screaming from his nightmares was a thing met with empathy rather than frustration at best and pity at worst.</p><p>He was on a hunt. This wasn't a sanctioned hunt by a long shot. He'd teamed up with a bunch of strangers he'd be a fool to ever call friends. These people were dangerous and their loyalties were tied to money and any other form of power, not with each other.</p><p>He took a deep breath and settled back down. He was sleeping on the floor of someone else's ship, a moment's rest in the middle of a restless thing.</p><p>Nobody else noticed he'd woken up like that. There were two people also sleeping on the floor, far enough away from him that they'd have to take a step to reach him, and one step was all he'd need to wake up and get to his feet in the event they turned to him.</p><p>He doubted he'd get back to sleep, but he could, at least, rest a little longer. He let his mind wander and hoped sleep would find him sooner rather than later.</p><p>He'd teamed up with this group because he wanted to make a name for himself. He wanted to be <i>known</i>. Not as Din – never as Din, that name was dead, relegated to a scared little boy who knew nothing of conflict – but as <i>The Mandalorian.</i></p><p>As soon as he'd done that, he'd split. He'd become a party of one; not a clan, not yet, perhaps never but he was okay with that.</p><p>He didn't have a soulmark, didn't have a soul<i>mate</i>.</p><p>Didn't have anyone waiting for him out there he'd go out of his way not to meet, not ever. There was nothing to be gained from having a soulmate, not for him. </p><p>Partners? Partners were easy for Din to manage. Partners, both in work and in bed, began and end as strangers; he wouldn't be able to do that with a soulmate.</p><p><i>But what if your soulmate is a hunter as well?</i> a part of his mind that had wandered too far asked.</p><p>Din got to his feet with a grunt and headed for the cockpit. He wasn't getting back to sleep, he decided, but nor was he letting his mind wander any farther.</p><p>–</p><p>Boba's hip <i>burned.</i></p><p>It shouldn't be burning. He hadn't been crouched down that long, and even if he had <i>anywhere else on his legs</i> would be burning first.</p><p>He wanted to scratch at it, see if that offered any relief. It felt like...not a brand, not quite. It was more electric, more constant. The burn seared into him, made him want to give away his position by standing up and tearing his clothing off to get full access to whatever was causing him so much pain.</p><p>He cursed himself for even thinking such a dangerous thing. He'd been doing this for <i>decades.</i> he was beyond this sort of novice thinking.</p><p>Work first, personal comfort second. He had work to do; he was not a man who stopped for pain.</p><p>He set his jaw and refocused. </p><p>–</p><p>He'd managed to break from the group. It had taken longer than he might have liked; they were decent together, but they weren't great. He was still young, sure, but age and skill weren't things that scaled evenly. And besides, they had been splitting their earnings.</p><p>He had a covert to care for, and there were no other beroyas left. He couldn't afford to work as a team, not anymore.</p><p>He was proud of this, of the work he was doing, of how he was able to provide for his covert, his <i>people.</i></p><p>And so, when the back of his neck started to itch so badly he thought he'd been bitten by something whose saliva carried a slow-acting poison, he was alone.</p><p>He stripped down as he ran to his tiny 'fresher, armor put down with less care that usual and everything else discarded with no care.</p><p>The 'fresher didn't help.</p><p>He still ran his clothes and armor through the 'fresher to be safe about it.</p><p>He had a job to do, and as much as he had no idea how long he was going to feel like this, he had a covert to feed at the other end of the job.</p><p>–</p><p>Boba froze his still-screaming target in carbonite and stormed off to his quarters to see what was going on with his hip.</p><p>It still burned, but it was less searing. Boba did not find any comfort in that, though.</p><p>Once in his quarters, he damned near ripped his utility belt off, in a rush to look at whatever was happening. He'd opted to use his lone mirror instead of trying to read upside down.</p><p>–</p><p>The Armorer would be able to guide him.</p><p>Even if it was something obvious he'd somehow missed, she'd help.</p><p>And so, when he managed to discreetly pull her aside to tell her of the itch that should probably be called pain, she hummed and said, <i>I see</i>, and told him to meet her in their disused med bay an hour before sunrise.</p><p>He'd stayed up the entire night, sleep so, so far from his mind.</p><p>She was waiting for him like she'd expected him to be there early and sleepless.</p><p>–</p><p>This wasn't happening.</p><p>Boba didn't have a soulmate. He couldn't. He'd been alive for over thirty years at this point, how could he have a soul mate?</p><p>And yet, there it was.</p><p>A soulmark.</p><p>–</p><p>The Armorer did not even need to shift his armor to take a look at whatever was afflicting him. She pulled his cape back just enough to shift his blacks.</p><p>And she froze.</p><p>The Armorer did not freeze.</p><p>–</p><p>
  <i>Are you Jedi?</i>
</p><p>Boba roared, furious, and threw the mirror across the room. It didn't break or even crack, mocking him.</p><p>–</p><p>“I've been tracking you, Mandalorian,” the Armorer <i>whispered.</i></p><p>Din didn't understand what she meant.</p><p>–</p><p>In what situation could someone possibly mistake him for the people who killed his father?</p><p>Boba stomped all over the ship, swearing and shouting and demanding answers to all the questions he was shouting into the void.</p><p>–</p><p>“A soulmark,” she told him and his brain went numb, “You have a soul mark.”</p><p>–</p><p>Boba was still angry with whatever trick of fate landed him with someone who mistook him for a <i>Jedi</i> when he'd exhausted himself physically.</p><p>He screamed one last time, a wordless thing, and flopped forward to lie on his bed.</p><p>Boba was <i>not</i> going to change how he lived his life. He was a hunter. There was no way someone could look at a hunter and think <i>Jedi.</i> Sith, perhaps, but not Jedi.</p><p>He wasn't going to come <i>close</i> to anything Jedi.</p><p>–</p><p>“I'm soulmates with someone who wants to kill me?” Din asked because, really, why else would someone be tracking a Mandalorian.</p><p>“You are soulmates with someone who will have spent some time trying to find you for reasons unrelated to you being soulmates,” there was barely-buried laughter in every word as she corrected him.</p><p>It didn't make Din feel better about the possible circumstances in which he'd meet his soulmate.</p><p>“Do you think it's someone related to the purge?” he asked. He did not <i>want</i> the answer, but he thought he <i>needed</i> the answer.</p><p>She did not answer him, only tucked his cape back where it belonged.</p><p>“When one becomes a Mandalorian, one become both hunter and prey,” she reminded him, “If nothing else, your soulmate is someone who will remind you of who and what you became the day you swore yourself to The Way.”</p><p>Din could live with that, he figured.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Clearing a Path, part 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Chapter-specific warning: implied/referenced self-harm, mild torture in the form of a Sarlacc, describing the Great Purge as genocide</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had only made sense, after the soulmark showed up: Find somewhere he would have steady work that was also so, so far from anywhere any of the still-remaining Jedi would come remotely near.</p><p>And so, he'd settled down on Tatooine.</p><p>Well, he wouldn't exactly say he'd <i>settled down,</i> not really. Rather, he'd <i>found a single employer.</i> Jabba was, well, he wasn't honest, he wasn't fair. His word meant nothing if you hadn't earned its meaning. </p><p>And oh, he had earned it. He'd earned Jabba's employment, had come as close to earning Jabba's <i>trust</i> as anyone ever did.</p><p>And, as a bonus, Jabba held no love for the Jedi.</p><p>Boba had heard whispers, almost-stories of when Jabba's son had been kidnapped, the Jedi framed and while the Jedi <i>had</i> been the ones to bring his son back, well...</p><p>Boba noticed a distinct lack of heirs to Jabba's throne.</p><p>He'd seen the Jedi during the Clone Wars, knew how these blood-thirsty monsters who fashioned themselves peacekeepers. Mercy was only for those who served to further their cause, whatever it was. They had had most of the galaxy fooled until the very end of the Clone Wars, but Boba had known the truth of it well before then.</p><p>The Jedi thrived on war; without war, there would be no peace to keep.</p><p>And an entire war where people wearing his face – wearing <i>his father's face</i> – had been slaughtered beyond number?</p><p>Well.</p><p>First chance he got, Boba was going to teach a Jedi what it meant to suffer as he had.</p><p>–</p><p>It was easy to pick up a habit, Din had come to learn.</p><p>Spice, for some, the promise of escape and whatever else it brought made it a difficult thing to resist for many, the first time, even more difficult, and so on and so forth until their lives revolved around the substance.</p><p>Alcohol, other drugs, other people, adrenaline.</p><p>Pain.</p><p>That had been the one that finally got Din, the pain. He <i>loved</i> the way pain made his mind sharp, made his heart run in ways the chase never did.</p><p>It never worked when he inflicted it on himself, though, and oh, he'd tried. He'd forgotten more ways to inflict pain on himself than he remembered. Could remember the methodology for.</p><p>He'd made it a bit of a game: see how close he could get to a target before they realized it was them he'd come for. And from there, see how much pain he could make them inflict on him before he had to take them down.</p><p>The game worked in reverse, in a way: they got to see how far this particular Mandalorian could be pushed without going down.</p><p>There was another habit he'd picked up at the same time, though.</p><p>He'd hated his soul mark, hater the power it held over him. The notion that his <i>soulmate</i> could be someone he needed to bring in cold.</p><p>Which, he supposed, was also what had driven him to figure out what pushed him past his limits in the first place.</p><p>And so, any time a target's first word to him was <i>I</i>, Din shot them in the face.</p><p>–</p><p>He'd lost track of the years he'd spent as Jabba's favorite – and the universe's most feared – bounty hunter.</p><p>He'd taken to only taking off his helmet in front of anyone; his face was the most recognized face in the galaxy.</p><p>That one wasn't his doing, though.</p><p>Jabba did not care that he was, technically, a clone. Nor did he care that Boba was different from the rest of the clones.</p><p>He just cared that Boba got the job done.</p><p>And oh, did Boba get the job done.</p><p>And job, any place, any time. There was no corner of the galaxy someone could try to hide that kept them safe from Boba.</p><p>His father, for the brief time he'd still had him in his life, had told him he was <i>different.</i> He was the only clone who wasn't altered. Boba alone was his legacy; Boba alone did not have anything suppressed or removed.</p><p>And oh, how Boba had wanted to follow his father's path, wanted <i>his name</i> to strike fear in the very souls of those who heard it.</p><p>And he'd done just that, even without his father's guidance.</p><p>Thing was, as much notoriety as he'd amassed, as wide as his name and deeds had spread across the stars, at the core of it all, he knew he'd lose it all if he ever broke from Jabba.</p><p>He was little more than Jabba's <i>pet hunter.</i></p><p>–</p><p>Din had heard a lot of horrible ideas in his life. Hell, he'd <i>come up with</i> a lot of bad ideas in his life. He;d even <i>recognized</i> some of those ideas as bad ideas and went ahead anyway.</p><p>This idea was somewhere well beyond that.</p><p>It wasn't his idea, to retake Mandalore. He'd never been to the planet; his buir had never seen the need.</p><p><i>It's a place where cowards who'd've seen our entire culture disappear,</i> was the only explanation Din had ever gotten.</p><p>And so, he was far away while the reclaiming happened.</p><p>He wasn't the only one; almost all of his covert stayed back, let those who'd managed to convince themselves that the sins of those who'd lost the planet in the first place weren't seeped into the planet itself.</p><p>It was the right thing to do, Din figured.</p><p>–</p><p>Boba had never once questioned Jabba's orders, had never once refused a task. He'd even worked with Darth Vader, had all but gained <i>Vader's trust</i> – or whatever passed for trust to the Sith Lord, a thing boosted by his close ties to Jabba.</p><p>Nobody survived long in Jabba's palace if they weren't good for their word.</p><p>In fact, Jabba tended to get creative in terms of how those who <i>weren't</i> good for their word should be punished.</p><p>Which was exactly how he'd found himself transporting one Han Solo, frozen in carbonite, to Jabba's palace.</p><p>This, he knew, was a horrible idea. He was with the Rebel Alliance, which boasted the last Jedi in the universe who wasn't in hiding.</p><p>They'd come for him, Boba knew; he'd tried to warn Jabba, but Jabba wasn't hearing it.</p><p>Boba was right, of course.</p><p>They <i>had</i> come for him, Solo's <i>friends.</i> They shouldn't have won. There was so few of them, and so many of, well, everyone else.</p><p>They had lost, at first. Solo and his friends who tried to be rescuers were bound, doomed, about to be shoved into the pit.</p><p>Boba's worry seemed to have been entirely unfounded.</p><p>And yet, he found himself falling.</p><p>This was wrong, this wasn't how he was supposed to die. Not here, not like this.</p><p>It hurt, it hurt so damned bad. The tentacles seemed to be what the monster used in place of hands. It stripped him of his armor, his flight suits, everything down to his skin, like it knew what it couldn't digest at all and did away with it.</p><p>This was pain unlike he'd ever experienced.</p><p>As his world went dark, his last thought was, <i>What happens to my soulmate now?</i></p><p>–</p><p>Din hated being right.</p><p>The retaking of Mandalore had succeeded, but the victory's afterglow hadn't even faded before the last remnants of the Empire came and started slaughtering every single Mandalorian they found.</p><p>Some had given up their armor, Din heard, had thrown away their identity, discarded their faith because they'd developed a sudden fear of death.</p><p>What cowardice. </p><p>He and his covert – and some of the stragglers who wanted to survive with their own people – relocated themselves to a network of underground tunnels on a planet called Nevarro. It was cramped, uncomfortable, degrading.</p><p>They'd heard rumors of other coverts, other small groups of survivors who'd gone into hiding and were making their way the best they could. Still Mandalorian, still true to the Creed, but so far away and so concealed that they might as well not exist at all as far as Din was concerned.</p><p>They knew they'd be hunted until the last of the Empire was scrubbed from the universe. As far as the Empire was concerned, Mandalorians were a threat to their ability to return to power, and like any threat, they had to be dealt with.</p><p>They, the survivors, knew they should only go above ground one at a time as to not attract attention.</p><p>And, as the sole surviving beroya, it was almost always Din who was the one above ground.</p><p>There was a constant tension in the covert, restlessness and anger and pride so badly wounded it didn't stand a chance to heal. It was frequently directed at Din, as if it was <i>his fault</i> he was the only beroya.</p><p>Truth was, there was no one else who'd been trained as beroya. None of the other survivors who were old enough to swear the Creed had any aptitude in terms of becoming a beroya.</p><p>They were too angry, too quick to violence. They would cost the covert too many credits, lost when they brought in a dead target that very much should have been alive.</p><p>And so, Din endured what came close to hate so that his covert could survive.</p><p>–</p><p>He'd been climbing for days.</p><p>He didn't get far at all, his limbs weak and his nerves <i>cut off</i> from the rest of him by whatever this monster secreted to keep its prey from ripping it apart from the inside out. </p><p>It seemed to double as a life support, he'd noticed, something that kept him from dying of hunger or dehydration. It kept him awake, too. Once the secretions had started doing their job, the pain had stopped.</p><p>What a cruel thing.</p><p>He wouldn't end like this. His legacy <i>couldn't</i> end like this.</p><p>Jango Fett's legacy couldn't end like this.</p><p>And so, as soon as he regained consciousness, he'd started climbing.</p><p>Even without his armor, he was a weapon. He'd been a weapon his entire life. A hunter's weapons, after all, were nothing more than extensions of the hunter himself.</p><p>It took <i>weeks</i> to climb out. At least, he assumed it was weeks. He wasn't sure he'd counted all the periods of total darkness he assumed were night and even if he had, it was probably for the best he forgot how many there were anyway.</p><p>It didn't take long after he completely crawled out for the pain to start and the world to fade from his consciousness.</p><p>At least his legacy didn't end inside of a Sarlacc.</p><p>–</p><p>Din purposefully picked the biggest targets, the hardest targets. He'd developed a sense of pride when it came to his record of bringing in targets that had long eluded other hunters. </p><p>And besides, bigger targets meant bigger bounties, which in turn meant more he could give the covert.</p><p>He didn't buy more for himself than he absolutely had to. He fixed his own ship as much as he could, only paying for repairs if he absolutely had to. He ate only when he had to, drank only when he had to, lived on the absolute bare minimum because the thought of taking from the covert that depended on him was something he'd rather die than do.</p><p>He'd cut back on seeing how far he could get a target to push him, he really had. It was less fun when the notion that pushing a target far enough that they snapped meant his covert had nothing more to live on.</p><p>That didn't mean he missed the rush, though.</p><p>It was a lonely thing, being the last hunter in his clan. There was no one to stand beside, no one to go with him for trickier bounties. </p><p>He'd learned to be alone, always alone. He'd survived this long alone, and, soulmark be damned, he'd see this life out alone, he knew it.</p><p>–</p><p>When he awoke again, it was in a Tusken tent.</p><p>He was cold. He hurt in more ways than he thought someone <i>could</i> hurt without dying. He was <i>thirsty</i> and his eyes felt like they'd been stabbed.</p><p>He must have made a noise, because there were suddenly three Tuskens in the tent with him, fussing over him and chattering amongst themselves in a language Boba did not understand. He felt like they were changing bandages for him – he had no idea if he was bandaged or not, no idea what they'd done to him.</p><p>They seemed to be saving his life, though.</p><p>He didn't understand. He had done nothing for these people. They owed him no debt, he wasn't one of their own from another tribe.</p><p>And yet, they were trying to save him.</p><p>There was this dim, distant spark of hope that he might actually make it.</p><p>That he might actually be able to rebuild his legacy. If he recovered enough to move on his own again, anyway.</p><p>He could be patient.</p><p>He could be <i>fantastic.</i></p><p>Oh, how impossible his life had just become and he was <i>loving it</i> despite the pain.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I know I keep saying <i>soulmate</i> but I think these boys pronounce it <i>anxiety.</i></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Star-Crossed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Two very different Mandalorians head for convergence.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A short one trying to close the gap between where chapter 2 left off and where this story diverges from canon..</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><i>Years</i> of Din's life blurred together into a largely unmemorable blur. He hunted, he gave his credits to the covert, he left again. He felt, at his lowest, like a ghost. He wasn't really a part of his covert anymore, just a part of the machine that kept everyone else alive.</p>
<p>Until everything changed.</p>
<p>He had a child – who was also older than him – to look after. There hadn't been any planning behind it and, really, the whole thing could have – <i>would have</i> – gone much worse if his covert hadn't rallied to him and the kid. He was still reeling from that when Cara killed a hunter before the hunter had a chance to kill the kid.</p>
<p>He'd been desperate for credits, having made no money on Sorgan. He'd done some foolish things, not the least of which was 'helping' an old friend whose true mission seemed to be revenge.</p>
<p>Din left a trail of blood and destruction behind him as his ship limped to Tatooine for repairs.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Boba knew exactly where his armor was; getting it back wasn't a logistics problem.</p>
<p>His armor's current location was <i>on the body of one Cobb Vanth</i>, the self-styled Marshal of the forgotten town of Mos Pelgo. </p>
<p>Getting his armor back was, however, an ethics problem.</p>
<p>Mos Pelgo had, from what Boba had been able to piece together, fallen into a different group of terrorists and torturers immediately following the destruction of the second Death Star.</p>
<p>The details were a little fuzzy, but the general situation was that Vanth was wearing his armor, and because of that armor he'd been able to reclaim Mos Pelgo and ensure it remained a free town. Taking it from him opened the town up to getting taken over again.</p>
<p>More than that, and okay, possibly a tiny logistics problem: there was every chance that, upon trying to get his armor back, the townsfolk who Vanth protected <i>might</i> try to take Boba down and he wasn't up for seeing how many civilians he could kill before someone with a bolt gun shot him from a roof.</p>
<p>All of his worst-case scenarios ended with someone staking out a high vantage point with a bolt gun.</p>
<p>And so, he walked the planet and waited for <i>something</i> to change.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Din made mistakes.</p>
<p>Frequently and in general, but rarely so many so grand in such rapid succession.</p>
<p>One of the bikes had been demolished because the scope-blinding flash had been just part of a second out of sync.</p>
<p>The new kid talked so damned much that Din should have seen just how unsure he was of his skill.</p>
<p>Fennec had been left conscious while he went to go find the dewback, which allowed her to tell the kid...whatever she'd told him that made him shoot Fennec dead and flee on the lone speeder.</p>
<p>He'd done two things right, though.</p>
<p>He'd decided to trust the mechanic, and he'd managed to sneak his last flash charge to said mechanic.</p>
<p>For whatever reason, Peli sided with him instead of the aspiring bounty hunter, and for that he and the child were both alive and unharmed.</p>
<p>He hadn't regretted dumping the entire bag of credits into Peli's hand.</p>
<p>She'd more than earned them.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Fennec Shand was dying.</p>
<p>Fennec Shand was dying on the back of the speeder Boba had managed to salvage from parts scattered near the place he'd found her.</p>
<p>It was happenstance, really; he hadn't known something had taken out a sharpshooter like Fennec in the middle of the Dun Sea and if he had he might have scouted the situation from a safer distance before seeing if there were any signs of life left.</p>
<p>If he'd been any later, though, she would have been dead.</p>
<p>He hauled her the last few steps into his father's ship, slammed her in carbonite to stop the dying process while he found a medical facility willing to take a patient like this without asking any questions or making any calls.</p>
<p>He had the money to spare and then some. Besides, he considered it something he needed to do; he'd been rescued by a people who could have left him for dead. With the animosity between their species, they could have and none in the other Tusken tribes would have thought them any less honorable.</p>
<p>And if Fennec did survive whatever work needed to be done to repair and replace the organs blasted to hell?</p>
<p>He'd figure it out then.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Find other Mandalorians.</p>
<p>Din knew this particular hunt was going to be a trying one, not least of all because he'd been forced to not only accept his covert was gone but also barred from staying behind to try to process anything.</p>
<p>When he found someone wearing beskar who hadn't taken the creed, he was ready to kill him on the spot, consequences be damned.</p>
<p>How <i>willing to kill him in the middle of his own town</i> had become <i>letting himself get eaten by a dragon so Cobb would take the armor off voluntarily</i> was beyond him. He couldn't even mentally retrace his the stages of reasoning he'd gone through to arrive there.</p>
<p>As Cobb removed the armor and told Din to tell <i>his people</i> he wasn't the one who broke the jet pack, Din felt the reminder that he had no idea where his people were – or if there were any of them left alive – like a blow.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Fennec had agreed to help Boba with anything he needed, for as long as he needed help, as repayment for saving her life.</p>
<p>She insisted it was only right.</p>
<p>“And besides,” she'd actually managed to laugh, “You won't even need to feed me on account of me not having a stomach anymore.”</p>
<p>He wasn't sure that was how it worked, but he wasn't going to argue with her.</p>
<p>Beyond having Fennec at his side, though, Boba's luck was horrible.</p>
<p>He'd missed being able to confront a Mandalorian who had his armor attached to his speeder at Mos Pelgo by mere hours, based on the speed and trajectory of the stranger.</p>
<p>Fennec was back on the <i>Slave I</i>, still not quite healed enough for long walking treks and the ship was far too large to do the more detail-oriented reconnaissance things like <i>figuring out why a dragon exploded in the middle of the desert.</i></p>
<p>Whatever was the perfect mixture of brave, crafty, and fucking dumb to <i>explode a dragon</i> ran the risk of hearing the ship coming and hiding until the ship passed.</p>
<p>So on foot it was.</p>
<p>He told Fennec where to meet him and walked her through how to start and handle the ship.</p>
<p>They'd missed the stranger departing Mos Eisley by barely a few minutes.</p>
<p>“I'm pretty sure you just invented half those words,” Fennec told him when he was done cursing.</p>
<p>Boba growled. Fennec didn't even flinch.</p>
<p>He was going to enjoy working with her.</p>
<p>The hunt was on.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Din felt like he was being thrown all over the damned galaxy, chasing whispers and information that felt more akin to puzzle pieces than actual help.</p>
<p>He'd been a taxi service, helped take over an Imperial ship, met a Jedi, deposed of a tyrant, learned his son had previous Jedi training and he was still no closer to finding a Jedi who'd train Grogu.</p>
<p>
  <i>What a name.</i>
</p>
<p>The destination he'd been given was in the deep core. He absolutely had to travel sub-light to get to it – nobody in their right mind traversed the deep core without absolutely needing to – and just <i>hope</i> nobody who wanted him arrested or dead recognized the <i>Crest</i>.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Boba had seen Fennec's soul mark quite by accident.</p>
<p>“You can ask,” she didn't even look up from whatever she was reading, “I can feel you staring.”</p>
<p>“Sorry,” he redirected his stare to the ceiling.</p>
<p>“She's dead,” Fennec told him despite the fact he had absolutely not asked.</p>
<p>“I'm sorry,” he said despite not knowing if he was sorry for her loss at all.</p>
<p>“What about you?” she still appeared focused on whatever she was reading, “Dead, or never got the mark?”</p>
<p>“What makes you think I didn't meet them and leave?” Boba asked.</p>
<p>“Because once you've made the connection,” she locked her data pad, “you never want to let them out of your sight again.”</p>
<p>“Dead, then, I presume,” Boba didn't actually believe what he was telling her.</p>
<p>“Ah,” she finally looked up at him, “Can I pry?”</p>
<p>“Sure,” Boba almost laughed, “Pry away.”</p>
<p>“Why are you presuming dead?” she turned to face him entirely.</p>
<p>“I'm over forty,” Boba <i>did</i> laugh, a dry sound with no traces of humor to it, “and nobody's asked me if I'm Jedi.”</p>
<p>“It never plays out like you're expecting,” Fennec stood up and stretched, “Well, if you're right it saves you the pain of losing them.”</p>
<p>“I guess,” Boba turned to walk to the cockpit.</p>
<p>He needed this conversation to be over.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>His son was meditating and he couldn't get to him.</p>
<p>Another ship had landed and they <i>needed </i> to leave.</p>
<p>The only reason anyone else would come to this empty planet would have been because they'd followed them here. He'd come so close to losing Grogu before.</p>
<p>He was <i>not</i> going to let that happen again.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>“There,” Fennec indicated the rock she'd be perched on, the child in her sights as leverage, “But I should warn you: the guy's unpredictable and the kid's the only thing in the universe he cares about.”</p>
<p>“I plan to use that to my advantage,” Boba really, really hoped this worked.</p>
<p>“By threatening to have me shoot the kid?” Fennec sounded less convinced this plan was going to work than he did.</p>
<p>“You saw how whatever forcefield is active threw him,” Boba dismissed her concerns, “It won't let anything through, weapons' fire included.”</p>
<p>“Alright,” Fennec sighed, “I want you to know that when this goes to shit I'm doing everything in my power not to tell you I warned you about the guy.”</p>
<p>“Go,” Boba shooed her away, “We're running out of time.”</p>
<p>Fennec huffed and walked off to her stake-out spot.</p>
<p>It was nice to have the sniper with the high ground on his side, not the other side, even if she did enjoy subverting any and all authority she came across.</p>
<p>The man who saved her life included.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>The man approaching him was clad in black cloth and carrying a Tusken walking staff-weapon hybrid.</p>
<p>Din's stomach dropped; there was only one way he'd ever heard of someone coming by a staff like that, and it wasn't be receiving a gift.</p>
<p>Still, he could remain in charge of the situation. He had to, for Grogu's sake.</p>
<p>“I’ve been tracking you, Mandalorian,” the stranger forewent anything resembling a traditional greeting and Din debated leaving the planet entirely.</p>
<p><i>Now, of all times?</i>  he wanted to scream. </p>
<p>Screaming wouldn't do.</p>
<p>He took a deep breath, steadied his nerves, and looked to the stranger.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>This might not go as horribly as Fennec expected.</p>
<p>Boba had gotten within talking distance and let the Mandalorian know he'd been tracking him. He hoped the Mandalorian would realize that meant Boba was damned good at what he did, and running wouldn't change his fate <i>before</i> Boba demanded his armor back.</p>
<p>Where someone who was not, to use Fennec's word, unpredictable may have asked who he was or what he wanted with him, the Mandalorian instead asked a question with only three words to it.</p>
<p>“Are you Jedi?”</p>
<p>Boba was glad he'd gotten all his screaming out decades ago.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Here goes. Uh. Here goes something, that's for sure.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. All the Other Broken Heroes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>If the fight doesn't kill you, there's always the aftermath to contend with.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <i>*internal screaming*</i>
</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Din had met his <i>soulmate</i> minutes before his entire world went to shit.</p><p>He was in the sleeping area of this new Mandalorian's ship trying not to vomit, alone and shaking. Boba and Fennec both had given him a wide berth since they'd gotten on board. Everything that happened between then and now was a blur with a small handful of moments too clear for him to handle.</p><p>The Child – <i>His child!</i> – was gone, taken by the man they'd been trying to outrun. His ship was gone too, presumably to keep him from following.</p><p>Maybe it was lucky Boba had shown up. He'd still be stranded otherwise, without Grogu <i>and</i> without hope. Now, at least, he had hope.</p><p>Whatever that was worth.</p><p>They were on their way to Nevarro to see if Cara Dune could be talked into doing one of the most reckless favor Din had ever asked of anyone. </p><p>–</p><p>Fennec had been in the cockpit for seven minutes and thirteen seconds. Boba hadn't so much as glanced at her.</p><p>“You need to talk to him,” Fennec shattered the silence Boba was trying to keep.</p><p>“No,” Boba still didn't look at her, “I don't.”</p><p>“What about your promise to help him?” Fennec challanged.</p><p>“<i>We</i> promised to help keep the child safe,” Boba did glance up, then, eyes holding little but anger.</p><p>“You seriously think you'll be able to walk away from him when this is over?” Fennec knew Boba was stubborn by reputation, but seeing it in-person was something else.</p><p>“This is going to kill at least one of us,” Boba faced forward again, “I'm not going to <i>have to</i> walk away.”</p><p>Fennec laughed.</p><p>She couldn't help it. The two of them – and the Mandalorian without a name currently shaking apart in the same general area she slept – were too fucking unlucky for the universe to have the grace to take them out when it would have gladly let any decent hero trying the same stunt die.</p><p>“You're right about that last bit,” she told Boba, “Still. You know as well as I do he's in the bunks coming completely undone.”</p><p>“As is his right,” Boba's words were clipped, almost like he was trying to avoid saying them altogether.</p><p>“Do you know what I'd give to have my soulmate back?” the laughter was gone from Fennec's voice entirely.</p><p>“You can have mine if you want another one so badly,” Boba snapped and left the cockpit before Fennec could strike him.</p><p>–</p><p>Cara, as a rule, wasn't a touchy-feely person. In fact. the most physical contact she'd had with any one person in the past several years was during fights she was paid to partake in. </p><p>She used that bit of trivia as her <i>tell me something about yourself</i> something in rare events anyone was so bad at reading people they actually asked.</p><p>Still, when Din told her the kid had been taken, she'd nearly climbed over her desk to give him – the only person she'd ever met less inclined to reach out to others than she was – a hug that would have cracked a few ribs even through the beskar.</p><p>She hadn't – for so many reasons – but she <i>had</i> pulled out every stop she came across to spring one mouthier-than-expected Migs Mayfeld from the chop fields.</p><p>She kept a close eye on Din. He was, by her estimate, doing far too well for someone who'd just had everything taken from him. Boba, who she'd heard of before, was much more surly that she'd expected, even for a Bounty Hunter with his stories history and Din had been cooped up with him and Fennec for days now.</p><p>Fennec, despite <i>her</i> reputation, was the best-mannered among them.</p><p>Migs – either oblivious to the general tension or because of it – kept trying to get a rise out of Din. Cara didn't intervene, but she was ready to in case Migs <i>did</i> get a rise in the form of getting himself shot before he'd been able to make himself useful.</p><p>Sending Din and Migs into the base was, unfortunately, the best idea they'd been able to come up with.</p><p>She'd hauled Din's armor to the watch point she and Fennec would maintain until they needed covering fire.</p><p>“You're worried,” Fennec said like it was a casual conversation.</p><p>“He's my friend,” Cara didn't take her eyes away from her binoculars, “Of course I'm worried.”</p><p>“I am glad he has one friend in the universe,” Fennec's tone was <i>different</i>, then, different enough Cara looked at her to see if there was any body language to tell her what Fennec's words weren't.</p><p>“The shit he's gone through,” Cara tried to pick her words carefully, “At least, the small bits I've seen. He's someone worth being a friend to.”</p><p>“We must have very different experiences with him,” Fennec tried to take the binoculars from Cara to start her turn doing the active watching.</p><p>“Story time first,” Cara held the binoculars away like that would actually stop Fennec.</p><p>To her surprise, Fennec only sighed before she did, indeed, start telling a story.</p><p>–</p><p>Boba wasn't <i>surprised</i> by the volume of dead on the roof.</p><p>Just a little confused as to where the plan had gone to shit like that.</p><p>He didn't miss how his soulmate – whose name he didn't even know – pulled Migs onto the ship and steadied him when the recoil should have knocked him backwards.</p><p>For someone whose body language suggested he'd leave Migs for dead given the chance when they'd left to hijack the convoy, <i>something</i> had changed.</p><p>Nobody told him what happened, and he didn't ask.</p><p>–</p><p>“Let me get this straight,” Cara finally had a chance to respond to Fennec's stories, “You used the kid as leverage to try to stop your own arrest and Boba straight-up threatened to kill the kid and he's <i>voluntarily</i> working with you two?”</p><p>She was careful not to say Din's name. The know reason she knew it was because Gideon had tried to use his name as a weapon, and letting it loose into the universe seemed like it would cause Din <i>harm.</i></p><p>“Well his ship did get blown up,” Fennec hadn't gotten to that part when the fire fight had broken out over the waterfall, “and Boba's his soulmate.”</p><p>“His WHAT?” Cara knew she'd yelled.</p><p>“Boba was just as surprised,” Fennec seemed unbothered by Cara's anger at the whole situation, “They've been avoiding each other.”</p><p>“Can you blame him?” Cara knew they weren't going to have time to finish this conversation.</p><p>“No,” Fennec shook her head and, okay, Cara hadn't been expecting Fennec to agree with her. Fennec must have picked up on that because Fennec added: “Dying realigns a lot of your priorities,” she paused, “I never put my finger near the trigger.”</p><p>“Even though Boba's more or less got your life to his name?” Cara crossed her arms.</p><p>“He has my life in his control,” Fennec smirked, “Not his own.”</p><p>Cara was going to be a little sad when she and Fennec parted ways once this whole disaster was done playing itself out.</p><p>–</p><p>Din truly had nothing now.</p><p>Well, no, Cara was still there when Boba landed the ship on the planet's surface again, his armor still in hand, but he'd defiled his Creed and despite Migs' insistence he hadn't seen his face, <i>Din</i> knew the truth.</p><p>Migs had gone on to destroy the entire base – something that hadn't even occurred to Din – and he began to wonder if Migs might have a chance at becoming a decent person one day.</p><p>Cara had let him go.</p><p>Migs all but ran away like he expected her to change her mind.</p><p>Din understood. He wanted to run from it all, too.</p><p>Still, they had the cruiser's location and one more stop to make.</p><p>He could lie to the universe just just a little longer.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <i>*external screaming*</i>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. These Graceless Hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Inevitably, from nothing comes something.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A short, transitional chapter between where they've been and where they're headed.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Two tetchy Mandalorians in one ship had been a hassle. </p>
<p>Four was an absolute disaster.</p>
<p>Cara had been running most of the interference while Fennec tried to keep Boba from killing the one he'd called <i>princess</i> in a way that made the word sound like a slur.</p>
<p>“So,” Fennec didn't give Boba the chance to leave the cockpit before she had a chance to start talking, “Everyone but you is minutes from getting on that little ship and trying not to die on the cruiser.”</p>
<p>Boba only grunted.</p>
<p>He'd tried to set things up so Fennec was the one who stayed behind, but the idea had been shot down before he could finish getting it out.</p>
<p>Nobody knew the <i>Slave I</i> better than Boba, and the shots had to be convincing.</p>
<p>“Really not going to talk to him before we leave?” Fennec raised an eyebrow,</p>
<p>“No,” Boba made a show of checking over the controls despite both of them knowing there was nothing to check, “Besides. We don't even know if he bears a soul mark, nonetheless if it matches.”</p>
<p>“That isn't what you're afraid of,” Fennec was unimpressed with his continued attempts to avoid the thing altogether; she was still furious he'd even <i>suggested</i> she could replace her lost soulmate and she'd taken to poking at whatever wound he tried to hide every chance she got.</p>
<p>“I'm not afraid of anything,” Boba lied outright, “You five get on the ship, he gets the kid back, Princess gets her weapon and her planet. Then it's over and everyone goes back to whatever lives they had.”</p>
<p>“What about us?” Fennec knew the <i>us</i> would throw Boba just enough he'd be honest to avoid leaving a silent gap she could use as conversational leverage.</p>
<p>“I settle some old scores,” he answered, “You keep pace with me.”</p>
<p>Like an object, Fennec thought.</p>
<p>“Alright,” Fennec sucked in a breath, “See you in a few hours.”</p>
<p>She left before he could make her any more angry with him than she already was.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>If Cara had a heart, it probably would have broken when Din said goodbye to the kid.</p>
<p>It was, she knew, what he'd set out to do since the Armorer tasked him with returning the kid to his people.</p>
<p>But sometimes doing what you had to do had the ability to feel like the worst option.</p>
<p>Din was <i>broken</i>, truly, properly broken in ways he'd wanted to be when he saw the armor of the dead he'd left behind in the sewers her first time on Nevarro. He was stripped from the inside out, now: no family, no home, no ship, and no kid.</p>
<p>He did, however, have the weapon Bo-Katan wanted and, really, she should have been keeping a better eye on the aspiring Empress but in Cara's defense Bo-Katan had been shot point-blank in the chest just before they were saved by the lone Jedi.</p>
<p>So when the Jedi had only just left and Bo-Katan lunged at Din, Cara hadn't been expecting it at all.</p>
<p>She went to break them up, but Koska took <i>her</i> on to keep her away from Bo-Katan's scrap with Din.</p>
<p>The fight was more of a brawl, no finesse or formality to it. The rigidness Bo-Katan had shown earlier had been a show for Gideon, not an ideal she truly believed.</p>
<p>Cara had her hands full with keeping Koska at bay.</p>
<p>There was an odd number of them left standing on the bridge, though, and when Fennec crossed the bridge in two and a half strides and kicked Bo-Katan in the jaw Koska had been too busy fighting Cara to even notice the sharpshooter had moved before Bo-Katan let out a pained scream that told Cara Fennec had aimed to harm over merely stop the fight.</p>
<p>Din was on his feet first, chest heaving and eyebrow and lip split open.</p>
<p>“Take it,” Din snarled and threw the weapon to the ground, “or leave it there. It. Isn't. Mine.”</p>
<p>“Boba,” Fennec radioed, “Three standing plus one unconscious for transport the hell out of here.”</p>
<p>Fennec kept her comm to her hear a few more seconds before she lowered it.</p>
<p>“Somebody grab Gideon,” Fennec looked at Cara, “Good luck with your cursed planet, princess.”</p>
<p>Cara dragged Gideon behind her by the ankle and, really, it was one of the most poetic things Fennec had ever seen.</p>
<p>Bo-Katan shouted at them until the blast doors screeched closed behind them, all words of violence and anger.</p>
<p>Din lead them to the bay they'd landed in, helmet held loosely in one hand. Fennec suspected it wasn't the hits his face had taken that kept him from putting it back on again.</p>
<p>“I hope I hit his head on every fucking door frame,” Cara told nobody in particular after one particularly loud thump of Gideon against a corner.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Cara had shoved Gideon into the carbonite frame with so much force Boba was pretty sure he heard bones crack.</p>
<p>Fennec had been the only one who'd emerged unscathed. Cara had some fresh bruises consistent with getting into a fist fight. The other one was bleeding from at least two places on his face and hadn't seemed to have even applied pressure.</p>
<p>“Alright,” Cara kept moving, “Boba, Fennec, one of you, med kit. Din, at least hold a palm to the one on your forehead, try to find a place to sit down.”</p>
<p>He sat where he was standing, helmet all but dropped next to him as he put the heels of both hands to his forehead.</p>
<p>Fennec was headed towards the med kit before Boba could recover from learning the other man's name.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Cara sat on the floor across from him, “I'm going to take your cape off and use it to clean you up a bit, okay?”</p>
<p>Din nodded.</p>
<p>Boba still felt frozen to the spot he was standing.</p>
<p>“Alright,” Cara leaned forward and started fighting with the cape, “Boba, it's a bit stuck in the back, can you-”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” the command-as-question got Boba moving. He knelt behind Din and started fighting with the thing. It was well-secured, meant to withstand anything and everything the universe could throw at it.</p>
<p>“Med kit!” Fennec announced her return, “What happened?”</p>
<p>“Cape's stuck,”Cara answered.</p>
<p>“Ah,” Fennec was beside them all at once, crouched down, hands not quite in the way but also not quite helping.</p>
<p>“You need to,” Din reached one hand back to tug the collar of his flight suit down from his neck and unsnap something well-hidden within the places the cape and suit met.</p>
<p>Boba pulled the cape down and out and in its wake, the words burned into the skin of Din's neck stared at him, sharp and accusing.</p>
<p>
  <i>I've been tracking you, Mandalorian.</i>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <i>*external screaming continues*</i>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Another Soul That's Been Cut Up the Same</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sometimes, you really <i>feel</i> all your scars and the hurt's worse than what caused them in the first place.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A moment that deserves a chapter of its own.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Din had shattered on the cruiser.</p>
<p>No – he'd shattered a long time ago, pieces of the man he should have been rumbling around in a set of blacks and kept upright by armor he'd managed to earn despite being shattered.</p>
<p>This was something different.</p>
<p>“Hey, Din, Din, can you focus on me?” </p>
<p>It was Cara, so close, impossibly close, one hand on his face and the other on his shoulder.</p>
<p>“Din, right here,” Cara tried to pull his focus to her, “I need you to breathe for me.”</p>
<p><i>I can't,</i> he wanted to tell her, <i>I can't I Can't I just can't.</i></p>
<p>Fennec was there, too, in front of him, hands on Din's face, too, hand near his face, too near, too much, too many Din couldn't breathe, couldn't feel, couldn't-</p>
<p>“Give him a little space,” Cara was saying, “As much as we can. Din, come on, we're here. Can you bring yourself back here for me?”</p>
<p>Where's here, Din didn't know here, didn't know how to get to whatever space Cara was calling him to. She felt solar systems away despite how she kept touching his face and leaving little strips of wet, light pressure behind.</p>
<p>“Fennec, damp cloth, warm if you can manage it,” Cara ordered the sharpshooter and then Fennec was gone from the edges of Din's awareness completely.</p>
<p>“Bacta strips have almost stopped the bleeding,” Cara was probably speaking to him, “We're going to have to clean your face up and get you into some different blacks, but right now you're doing fine.”</p>
<p>Din was not fine, how could she even say he was fine she was supposed to be his <i>friend</i> friends didn't lie to friends like that. Did they? What did friends do, what made a friend, what was the difference between friendship and pity-</p>
<p>“Here,” Fennec was back, “Not warm but not freezing.”</p>
<p>“Good enough,” Cara said before she started mopping at Din's face with something wet, probably the-the-she'd said to get <i>something</i> and that something was now on Din's face and oh, oh no, his face, his helmet his Creed his-</p>
<p>Din had no idea the scream of a wounded animal trying to rally one last time was his.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Boba knew he should do something.</p>
<p>
  <i>I've been tracking you, Mandalorian.</i>
</p>
<p>How had Din – his name was <i>Din</i>, the name of a Foundling with no name given to him by those who found him – lived for years knowing his soul mate was going to be <i>hunting</i> him?</p>
<p>Boba was frozen behind Din, half-listening to Cara's attempts at bringing Din's mind back to them. </p>
<p>Their marks matched.</p>
<p>Din was his soulmate.</p>
<p>His soulmate was right in front of him, shattering before his eyes, and he just-</p>
<p>-he was <i>stuck.</i></p>
<p>Fennec had seen Din's mark, too. Maybe not all of it but the edges of it, enough to know it was a mark at the very least.</p>
<p>Fennec was elsewhere now, following Cara's orders, the soldier who'd made herself the leader of this mission to keep Din from losing himself completely in the aftermath of whatever <i>this</i> was.</p>
<p>They'd both lost everything, Boba realized. He'd lost his father, his home, his <i>childhood.</i> He'd lost himself for a while, lost something inside of him in exchange for surviving the sarlacc, didn't have a rule he wouldn't break if push came to shove and-</p>
<p>-and so had Din.</p>
<p>As few pieces of Din as Boba had scraped out of the past few days, Din knew the type of loss where there was no recovery.</p>
<p>Din was right in front of him.</p>
<p>Din was billions of miles away.</p>
<p>Boba's hands had been just inches away from Din's skin hey it was Cara touching Din, fixing Din up as best anyone could.</p>
<p>What had Fennec said all those months ago? Once he had his soulmate he'd never leave him behind? Never want to let him go once he'd touched him?</p>
<p>Din was breathing <i>loud</i>, not quite hyperventilating but not breathing like he should at all.</p>
<p>And then Din screamed, a wounded sound meant to rally anything that wished to destroy him to come finish the job.</p>
<p>Boba had screamed like that, once.</p>
<p>Nobody had been there.</p>
<p>Not for him.</p>
<p>“Move,” Boba told Cara and, for some reason, Cara did. She was on her feet and one, two, three paces back so Boba could swing around to kneel in front of Din.</p>
<p>He put one hand on the back on Din's neck and the other on Din's shoulder before leaning forward to rest his forehead against Din's and <i>oh</i> this must have been what Fennec meant, the electric current that seemed to swirl around him, the antitheses to the burning he'd suffered when he'd first got his soul mark.</p>
<p>“I'm sorry,” he told Din.</p>
<p>He was sorry for so many things but had names for none of them, so he simply said again: “I'm sorry.”</p>
<p>Din <i>sobbed</i> and collapsed into Boba's chest.</p>
<p>All Boba could do was hold him.</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Din was sobbing, gasping for breath as he could, cheek against the cold beskar that covered Boba's but Boba's arms were around him and his chin rested on the top of Din's head.</p>
<p>Boba was apologizing, for what Din had no idea, but Boba's words were soft and his presence felt like a shell between Din and the universe that seemed so determined to destroy him.</p>
<p>In the middle of a particularly sharp inhale, Din realized Boba felt like home.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>
  <i>*screaming continues as infinitum*</i>
</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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